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Resources
Live Play Live Play basically is watching or listening to other people play DnD. There are a variety of groups who do this and I will recommend with links the best below. It is useful to see this because other than playing the next best thing when learning something is to see other people play the game. Also this is quite fun with DnD because your essentially just hearing a story. Watching or listening to live play will help you as a player by showing you how other people play, some of the mistakes they make and what they do well. It will also show you bits of the culture you may miss due to all of us being new to their current roles. Recommendations for Live Plays to Watch or Listen to You can absolutely go and find your own but these are just some I would recommend. Critical Role Critical Role is by far the most popular Live Play around. The characters are all played by professional voice actors and the DM is a guy called Matt Mercer who is a famous person in the world of DnD. He also runs his own DnD channel and does lots of events like CelbriDnD where he DMs for a bunch of celebrities including Joe Manganiello (How I met your mother, Magic Mike), Deborah Ann Wool (True Blood, Daredevil) Terri Crews and more. They have two campaigns as well as some one shots and loads of cool extras. Website Youtube Starter Kit Starter Kit is a Live Play from Geek and Sundry (The guys who started critical role). It is not very long (6 episodes) and is geared towards new players. Its tries to teach the audience while the players (who are all new to DnD aswell) learn as they play. The DM is good at explaining things and one of the players is from a metal band called Stitched Up Heart who I kinda like so pretty cool all round. Youtube The Adventure Zone Podcast For more of a listening than a watching experience the best by far is The adventure zone. 3 brothers and their dad just nerding out together on mic. Really fun to listen to. Available on all podcast apps The Broadswords An all female group of podcasters with a fun and dynamic story. The broadswords wants you to learn about their characters as they progress through the story which is fun and they are also pretty good at calling out what they are doing a lot of the time and explaining the game mechanics as they play which is useful for new players. Website Available on all podcast apps Basic Rules Wizards of the Coast (The company that makes DnD) provide a copy of the basic rules as a pdf for free here The basic rules provide character building information all though less than the standard players handbook (e.g. it only gives information on four of the races while the players handbook gives 8). Information on how to play the game and the general rules, Magic and how it works in the world and finally information for DMing. It is a comprehensive set giving everything you would need to play for absolutely free. Books and Sets Players Handbook (PHB) The bible for the DnD player and the most important of the core books the PHB is the absolute first book any DnD player should acquire. The PHB provides the ultimate reference for in-game rules, spells and just about everything a player (and about half of what a DM) needs to play the game well. (The basic rules above provide the same thing only with more limited options in some areas). You can pick up a copy of the PHB here. Starter Set The Starter set is geared towards beginners and is a very good first purchase for a fledgling DnD player. Containing a booklet containing the same same rules as the basic rules pdf only in a more accessible beginner friendly manner as well as this included is a dice set, some pre-gend characters and what is generally considered one of the best adventures available in DnD, 'Lost Mine of Phandelver', designed for player level 1-5. You can find the DnD Starter Set here. Essentials Kit Newly Release this month (Sept 2019) The Essentials kit is designed to act as a stand alone kit and an expansion to the starter kit. Containing new things like maps and cards as well as a dm screen and various other items that make the essentials kit also the first DnD product that is specifically design to be played with only two players as well as up to 6 more. With 4 adventures included the Essentials Kit is a good buy. You can find the DnD Essentials Kit here. Volo's Guide to Monsters (VGtM) The first proper player expansion book, the VGtM offers a vast array of new races, including the monstrous races. Additionally it include a vast array of new monsters and creatures for the DM. Volo's Guide to Monsters can be found here. Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE) The other key expansion to 5E the XGtE provides an enormous amount of new character building options including new archetypes for all the classes, and new racial trait options. Additional there are also new mechanics for the DM. Xanathar's Guide to Everything can be found here. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (MToF) Focused around a major event in DnD lore known as the blood war this book expands on several races found in the PHB and VGtM. Additionally a large amount of new monsters for the DM. Mordenkainens Tome of Foes can be found here. Other Core Books The other core books are mostly for the DM. The Monster manual (MM) is just a list of monsters the DM can use and The Dungeon Masters Guidebook (DMG) is exactly what it says it a guide on how to run a game and build your world. DMG can be found here. MM can be found here. There are two gift sets of all core books, the standard and the premium. Campaign Books with information for players Some of the campaign books contain specific player information such as specific backgrounds and lore for that campaign and some contain new races for the areas the campaign occurs in. They are listed below. Sword Coast Adventures Guide (SCAG) Acquisitions Incorporated (AI) Guidlmaster's Guide to Ravinica (GGtR) Wayfinders Guide to Eberron (WGtE): The WGTE is a prototype and can be bought on the DnD beyond website as a digital copy Smaller Supplements There is the Tortle package that can be bought on DnD Beyond in digital format which gives information on the lore and stats of the new race the Tortle. Additionally there is the Elemental Evil Player Companion which is given for free by Wizards. It contains information on several races and spells found in VGtM and is used as a companion to the DnD board game Element evil. Adventures/Modules There a variety of books for DM to run set adventures called modules. All of please plus all the books above can be found here. DnD Beyond DnD Beyond Is the website run by Wizards of the coast and contains all the official information you need. You can access all the rules (All though for supplemental material including poor books you do need to pay). There is the best character maker which is free for 6 characters. There is a home brew maker for you to make things that can appear in game. There are forums guide and articles that can answer almost all the questions you may have. Signing up for an account is completely free and definitely worth having Wizards also have a DnD digital Magazine called Dragon+ available as an App and here. Hero Forge Hero forge is a custom mini designer. Many DnD players use minis to represent their characters in game. While some use tokens and some just use any figure that looks vaguely like their character some like to make a specific one for them. Hero forge maybe a little pricey but by far the easiest way to do this. See some examples below of my characters. HeroForgeScreenshot.png|Bob The Unready, Human Candle Obsessed Cleric HeroForgeScreenshot (4).png|Rowan Silvein, Human Unwilling Servant Bard HeroForgeScreenshot (3).png|Olo, Orc Father Figure Cleric HeroForgeScreenshot (6).png|Ser 'Ozzy' Oswald, Goblin Aspiring Knight Paladin HeroForgeScreenshot (5).png|Shey Windblade, Elf Hiding Noble Wizard HeroForgeScreenshot (2).png|Aedan ' Lost' Daen, Drow Self Searching Monk HeroForgeScreenshot (1).png|Esher Silverstring, Human Snooty Noble, Fighter HeroForgeScreenshot (7).png|Tonkx Goblin, Niaeve Chef, Fighter The Trove The Trove is a file sharing site where someone has made pdfs of all reference materials for all sorts of RPGs. This includes the pdfs for all the books above in the DnD section of the site. This can be very useful for reference. Gigers 5E Gigers 5E is a Wikipedia for all things DnD. Containing an enormous amount of information (Essentially all the books and more) in one easy to use wiki. DMs Guild DMs Guild is a repository of unofficial fans created content. Very useful for finding resources such as adventures, useful sheets (E.g. I found some very good character booklets before) and additional information that people have created. Reddit There is a very good reddit community for DnD here. Facebook Groups There are two facebook groups i advise joining. Dungeons and Dragons UK Roleplayers in Bristol